Strange Adventures

Sep 9

I haven’t really blogged much about Strange Adventures in a while. I did mention the Comet vs Comet solicit back in June, but other than that, the last issue I mentioned was issue #3.

Sadly, its because the series really has gone off the boil for me. The abundance of versions of Synnar who keep turning up has gotten dull, and the storyline hasn’t really gone anywhere. I mentioned in my comments on issue 3 that I assumed the Aberrant Six would be key to this series, but instead all we’ve really had is the usual “Woo you’re part of the Aberrant Six” dialogue from Synnar with still no real idea what that is.

More annoying is how Starlin is now ignoring his own plots. He clearly established in the last series that Comet is pretending to be his own nephew, and allowing to believe everyone believe that the original Captain Comet is indeed dead. However the fact he was resurrected was mentioned by Synnar infront of Adam Strange in issue 6, and in issue 7 while in the Weird’s conciousness its a big part of the story that Comet is facing off against his older self. Despite this, Adam doesn’t bat an eyelid about the fact he’s been lied to. Instead of addressing this plot, Starlin seems to just be completely ignoring it, so you have to wonder why he bothered with it in the first place. Even a “we’ll discuss this later” line from Adam would’ve helped.

I guess my frustration with this series stems from the fact that there’s elements to these characters that really deserve to be explored. Gavyn is dealing with the destruction of the Throneworld and its subsequant repopulation by the Rannians. The Rannians are suffering from their relocation and attempts to rebuild their civilisation as Adam works to keep their survival secret. Yet these plots have scarcely had a look in since the initial issues. I’d much rather we’d have gotten an Adam Strange 6 issue mini series focusing on these aspects. Likewise the plot of Captain Comet pretending to be his own nephew and being a lot more, well, cowardly following his death/resurrection I thought made the character pretty interesting (even if it did jar with his Mystery in Space characterisation). Yet as mentioned, its been ignored. These are plots that Starlin himself has setup as well so it would’ve been nice to see him play with them more.

We now know that Strange Adventures is the last in this series of minis from Starlin. Sadly I can’t really see many of the plots he established being addressed at all by the last issue. Even more sadly I find myself not bothered. I’m pretty burned out on the Synnar stuff now, so I’m actually quite glad that story will be taking a break.

Comet and Adam Strange are slated to appear in R.E.B.E.L.S. next, so I’m guessing DC is now seeing that series as something they want to push, to focus on the non-GL cosmic side of the DCU. Which in itself is also a bit of a shame. While I won’t really miss Synnar, as I say, an Adam Strange, Comet and Prince Gavyn 6 issue series focusing on the situation with New Rann would be something I’d jump on. Still I’ll be picking up the R.E.B.E.L.S. issues to see what happens next with these characters.

Adam Strange, Captain Comet, Comics, DC Comics, Jim Starlin, Strange Adventures

Comments

Pie Man 70

September 14th, 2009 at 9:55 AM

Shame thsi has gone off the boil, Starlin is usually in his element with this sort of thing. perhaps REBELS could be good for shaking out teh cobwebs a bit with a new creative team.

Actually, post Blackest night this oculd be interesting for non-Gl cosmic stuff, we can assume that the GLC is now seriously understaffed, with the sinestro corps war and blackest night bound to take some casualties will we have a more dangerous universe where an understaffed GL corps, or at least rookie heavy, is often as not absent and otehr factions try to make their own way (Darkstars anyone?) It coudl be similar to the post Anihilation Marvel cosmic universe which even now barely has a Nova Corps (Think there’s about 6 of them now) and so we see otehr groups, like teh Luminals, and the Guardians of the Galaxy taking point.
Alan

September 15th, 2009 at 9:24 AM

Going from the latest 20 Questions session with Dan Didio, it does sound like there’s some big space plans for DC in 2010 which I’m glad to hear about. DC certainly seems to be throwing some marketing weight behind R.E.B.E.L.S. with the ring promotion and preview pages in a lot of last week’s DC books.

A short-staffed GL Corps could be interesting. It has been done in the past, but was something that was largely skipped past in volume 4 thanks to One Year Later. It was briefly touched upon in the New Corps series during Kyle’s run that the galaxy had become a lot more dangerous without the Green Lanterns, but it was never really explored that much.

Very interesting will be the status of the other Corps post-Blackest Night. It could be interesting to see Blue Lanterns turning up in other titles for example.

Reilly2040's Blog